In the run-up to a special session of the UN General Assembly at which at least seven Western states have announced their intention to extend diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine, numerous respected and knowledgeable commentators are declaring that a “two-state solution” is no longer possible and that advocating and pursuing it is a waste of time. While, even more so today than ever before, it is virtually impossible to imagine achieving any measure of justice for the Palestinian people, the opposite conclusion regarding a “two-state solution” may be reached through an assessment of the prospects for realizing the three conceivable scenarios for the future of Palestine.
A continuation of the status quo – an aggravated apartheid state actively pursuing the ethnic cleansing or extermination of the indigenous population of Palestine.
A single fully democratic state with equal rights for all in all of historical Palestine.
Partition of historical Palestine into two states, as recommended by the UN General Assembly in 1947 but now essentially along the pre-June 1967 lines, with a special status for a shared Jerusalem.
While Scenario 2 would be the most morally, ethically and humanly satisfying scenario in the eyes of most people, it must be recognized that, according to recent polling, only 14% of Palestinians favor that scenario, that the percentage of Jewish Israelis favoring that scenario is likely to be even lower and that no foreign government currently advocates that scenario.
By contrast, Scenario 3 is at least rhetorically advocated by every foreign government except the US government (which advocated it, if only rhetorically, for several decades prior to the first Trump presidency), with 147 countries having already extended diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine and more promising to do so this month.
Indeed, based on its compliance with the four criteria for statehood outlined in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (with which Israel does not fully comply, since, unlike Palestine, it has never defined its borders) and its diplomatic recognition by more than three-quarters of UN member states encompassing the overwhelming majority of mankind, the State of Palestine already exists as a matter of international law. It does not yet effectively function on the ground because its entire territory remains under belligerent occupation by the State of Israel, an occupation which the International Court of Justice has declared illegal.
The challenge is thus to bring the current apartheid one-state reality on the ground into line with the two-state legality under international law by ending the illegal occupation.
Doing so will require not just rhetorical aspirations and more than mere diplomatic recognitions. It will require crippling, multi-faceted sanctions by Western governments, accompanied by pariah-status shunnings by Western societies and international sports federations, in order to convince a majority of Israelis that ending the occupation would enhance the quality of their lives, as, indeed, it would.
Excerpted: ‘Three Scenarios for the Future of
Palestine’. Courtesy: Counterpunch.org
